Hidden

Domino; 2010

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Bassoons, French horns, Japanese taiko drums, a children's choir, Foley samples, incantations about secret recordings, labyrinths, and knights. And that's just Hidden's first two tracks. Raise your hand if you thought These New Puritans had it in them. Just two years ago, the band from Southend-- a UK borough set where the Thames meets the North Sea-- took a stab at Gang of Four rhythms and Mark E. Smith vitriol. Their debut album, Beat Pyramid, made interesting uses of negative space and some of the record's spartan tracks turned up as killer remixes. But if anything, TNP were late to the post-punk revival party and about as likely to author a grandiose and triumphant concept album as Glasvegas.

And yet Hidden is a strikingly inventive and original rock record. Granted, nothing is ever completely new in pop music, but the album freshly synthesizes older ideas (post-rock textures, no-wave skronk, Steve Reich-influenced phasing) and current trends (dubstep's delay, chart pop's stentorian synth lines, global beats). You have to listen really hard to hear any guitars. Similar to contemporaries Sigur Rós, Nico Muhly, and Joanna Newsom, These New Puritans challenge classical and popular value distinctions by fully integrating a 13-piece orchestra. A clutch of melodic motifs and variations weave through Hidden, keeping the song set extremely tight and aesthetically cohesive, so when "Orion"'s rabid beats and gothic choir feed into orchestral palette cleanser "Canticle", the transition is fluid and unpretentious.

That's not to say the record is particularly organic-sounding. TNP frontman/songwriter/arranger Jack Barnett has plotted this work of sonic theater to the smallest detail for the biggest bang. "Attack Music" pits dancehall horns against massive beats and cooing female voices against Barnett's arch sing-speak. If possible, the drums, played mainly by Barnett's brother George, are even more spectacular on M.I.A.-shoutout "Fire-Power"-- a track which simulates the crushing of a human skull with a cracker-wrapped melon. Drums, in fact, are so central to Hidden, that Liars comparisons are unavoidable. Barnett credits Benjamin Britten's 20th century opera Peter Grimes as an influence (it was inspired by the same estuary region TNP call home), and Hidden seems to drive at some sort of human/natural world showdown. Given the fact that we're perched on the precipice of ecological Armageddon, it's probably safe to say the band has appropriately scaled their sound to their subject.

But here's the thing: While Hidden's risktaking and relentless focus are easy to admire, they're harder to love. As Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" famously goes, "There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in." Good luck finding Hidden's cracks. Still, the record rewards dedication: Beneath the bombast, the playful piano-driven "Hologram" is human, even vulnerable, and the electro-pop contribution "White Chords", with its Thom Yorke-channeling vocals, is unexpectedly lovely.

Hidden is a statement, but not a manifesto. A band needs considerable imagination and skill, not to mention borderline delusional levels of ambition, to attempt this kind of project and hope to be successful. So we probably won't be hearing a lot about new genres "doombeat" or "woodwindwave" anytime soon. And now that they've shown what they're capable of, we can probably expect TNP to do something totally different, if not genuinely amazing, next time around.